Harper’s Story: The Letter I Sent to my Rapist

A while back I stumbled upon my rapist’s okcupid profile. I ended up writing the letter that is below and sending it through the okcupid messenger as a way of getting some form of justice for myself since my reporting it didn’t lead to charges being pressed. I don’t know if he ever said anything in response as I never checked. The point of the letter after all was not to give him a voice but to reclaim my own. I do know that he no longer has an account. He deleted his profile.

I want you to know the damage you caused. How bad the depression gets on the days when I relive the things you did to me through intrusive thoughts. How devastated I am that I was abused and raped in my first sexual relationship by someone I trusted. That if I think about being involved in sex now I become nauseous and frightened. That I have even thrown up from thinking about it. That I now have a deep fear of men and their motivations. That I now look at heterosexual couples sometimes and wonder how any woman could subject herself to being with a man.

I want you to know how I want love and a relationship but am so terrified of being abused physically and sexually again that any time someone shows interest (male or female) I retreat. That having sex again for the first time (if I ever do) is going to be a frightening and painful experience for me. That I now view it with dread. That it has become something I have to overcome before it can ever be something I enjoy.

I want you to know how I struggle everyday with my sexual identity as a result of your actions. How I go back and forth between wondering if I’m gay, asexual, or bisexual.

I want you to understand that you are responsible for your actions. That it was your job to control yourself and respect my boundaries and not my job to constantly fight against you for a sense of respect and safety.

I want you to realize that pushing the boundaries of someone who is suffering from trauma to see how much you can get away with is abusive and predatory. That fetishizing my childhood rape (which makes you a pedophile) and trying to sneak rape play into us having sex after finding out about the sexual assault is one of the sickest things you could have done.

I want you to understand that continuing to touch my breasts when I told you to stop and physically removed your hands is a sexual assault (so is grabbing my rear in the parking lot of Taco Bell).

I want you to understand that trying to coerce me into giving you nude pics by becoming angry and yelling at me while I repeatedly told you no is abusive.

I want you to understand that slapping me in the middle of sex without discussion or permission is assault, and that continuing to have sex with me after I told you no in response to you asking me if I liked being slapped with my voice breaking and choking back tears in distress is rape. I want you to know how I literally felt something inside me give out when you forced that kiss on me and kept going. How I disassociated during the assault. I want you to know how I kept repeating ‘you’re okay, you survived it’ to myself in my head after it was over but could not put words to what had happened or how I truly felt about it because I couldn’t fully process the attack due to shock.

I want you to understand that becoming aggressive and yelling at me to get me to submit, yelling again to get me in the bedroom, and again to get me out of my clothes is sexual coercion and rape. I want you to understand that the fact you did not ask permission to penetrate me when you were told you had to specifically ask permission for it puts your actions even more firmly in the category of rape.

I want you to know how helpless, frightened, and violated I felt both of the times you raped me.

I want you to understand that not being able to process an attack after it happens is the most common reaction to being attacked by a loved one. That shock and denial can keep you silent with confusion. That being heavily medicated with two emotional processing disorders (PTSD and autism- both officially diagnosed by this point) on top of that makes it near impossible to figure out what is happening emotionally or what to call it. And that none of that makes what you did to me my fault because nothing you did to me was under my control. You chose to do these things to me. You chose to put me in these harmful, damaging, and triggering situations without discussing these things beforehand. You chose to not follow the rules of consent. You chose to push boundaries. You chose to fetishize my childhood trauma. You chose to slap me. You chose to hurt me. You chose to coerce me. You chose to rape me.

This is on you. Your actions are your responsibility. And honestly I’m not sure how you live with yourself. You knew how vulnerable I was and how much I was already suffering. I will never understand why you made the choice to treat me this way. I never wanted to be treated this way and I certainly never stated that I wanted to be treated this way. I did not ask for it, I did not agree to it, and I did not deserve it.

I wonder sometimes if you have other victims. I wonder if those women you said think you’re a creep, those women you deemed “crazy girlfriends” are other victims of yours. If they should be calling you an abuser or rapist rather than a creep. I’m sure I’m not the only one you’ve harmed. There are probably other women out there but for various reasons they never spoke up or reported.

I’m sure you’ll go through your life continuing to lie about what happened. You’ll keep telling people I was just looking for attention or that I’m crazy or that it was BDSM (something I once again never agreed to or asked for) or some other made up story to preserve this façade of innocence you’re projecting to the world. But your lies can’t change the truth of what happened. You abused me and you raped me. You are an abuser and a rapist and there is nothing you can ever do to change that fact.

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The When You're Ready Project is a community for survivors of sexual violence to share their stories and have their voices heard, finding strength in one another. When you're ready to share your story, we will be here.